


The best part of my day

by redtoes



Series: Good, better, best [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak friendship, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 08:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtoes/pseuds/redtoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Felicity told Oliver about her day</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.

_"If you ever need someone to talk to about your day... you can talk to me."_

 

Oliver needs some normality in his life, she thinks. He needs a few moments in his day which are not about saving the city or pushing back the darkness. She thinks he knows that or he wouldn't have made the offer in the first place.

But she still doesn't take him up on it right away.

Her days are long. Her supervisor at QC is obsessed with time keeping. Felicity must be at her desk, logged on and ready to work at 8.30. Never mind the fact that most evenings she's still there until a security guards comes to force her out. She must be at work at 8.30.

She thought once about complaining to Oliver about it. Then she realises that if the supervisor (she doesn't think of him as her boss, merely a colleague with a more senior title) was forced out, the majority of his workload would probably fall on her. And she has more than enough to do already.

Her days were long before Oliver came into her life. Now they're twice as long, and she still has to start at 8.30.

She starts by complaining about the coffee. The office kitchens at Queen Consolidated are well stocked with culinary gadgets, but the quality of the ground coffee packets is closer to what she remembers from her student days (when any kind of coffee was welcome so long as it was strong) than what should be provided by one of the most successful companies in the city. She's not looking for espresso, but beans and a grinder wouldn't go amiss. She can bring in the one-cup vacuum press she got in the office Secret Santa to make it with but she draws the line at buying her own beans.

Oliver raises an eyebrow.

"They don't provide coffee?"

"Oh, they do," she explains, "but its not the sort you should drink. It's more the type of coffee that could be used to plaster walls. Or make bricks. It's not coffee. It's sludge."

He pulls a face. She knows he survived on an island for five years without even the worst kind of coffee to keep him warm, but he's so obviously a man who appreciates quality. She knows he'll come down on her side. Eventually.

"You know that I don't technically work at the company," he points out. "Beverage requests should really be handled by your office manager."

"It's your name on the door," she retorts, "can you really live with people associating your good name with the worst coffee ever?"

"You obviously never read the gossip pages," he says.

"I did," she banters, "but I never believed them. No one has that much stamina, and surely the thing with the goat, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and the whipped cream was entirely made up?"

He makes a strange choking noise and she looks up to see an expression on his face that's halfway between a blush and a laugh.

"How did you hear about that?" He asks.

"The Internet never forgets, Oliver."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says very formally, "but if I did, I'm sure it would be entirely Tommy's fault." But he's grinning when he says it and the next day she arrives at her desk at 8.25 to find a large bag of coffee beans, a goat soft toy and a note that says "Can I buy your silence?"

The beans are delicious. They make the best coffee she's ever had. She keeps the goat toy on her desk until her supervisor makes a crack about the company's clean desk policy.

Then the goat goes home with her and sits beside her home PC. She keeps the note in her desk drawer, inside the out-of-date print-out of the company phone directory under Q.

It always makes her smile.


	2. Television

She tells him about the watercooler conversation at the office. Complains that none of her colleagues watch the same shows she does so she ends up feigning interest in televised talent contests and whatever supernatural soap it is has the junior staffers all excited. 

When he asks her just which TV shows it is she does watch she pauses, suddenly stumped. 

"I DVR a lot of stuff," she says, knowing that there's a 2 terabyte hard drive connected to her hacked DVR that she hasn't checked in over a month. Possibly longer. It's too big to be full by now but she wonders how long that would take. 

Thinking about it she realises she doesn't miss television at all now her evenings are full of Oliver and his quests. Though she would quite like to see how the third season of Game of Thrones differs from the book. She's been avoiding Twitter to prevent spoilers. 

"DVR?" He says. But she won't be fooled.

"I know TiVo existed before you fell off the planet," she says giving him a look. "I may be blonde but even I can count to five."

He grins mischievously, the expression taking ten years off his face. Suddenly she can see the carefree kid he used to be. The trouble-making hard-partying playboy she used to read about.

"How many times," she asks, "did you get Tommy with that one before he saw through you?"

He raises an amused eyebrow. 

"What makes you think it's not still going on?"

"You wouldn't be trying it out on me."

He laughs and again she can see the person he was before the scars. 

"Seriously though," he says, "I've missed a lot. You could catch me up? Fill me in on the good parts - no sparkly vampires."

"You heard about that?"

"Tommy made a reference. So, noTwilight. But there must have been some good films in the past 5 years."

"You want to have a movie night?" She asks, somewhat incredulously. 

He shrugs. 

"You could just check Wikipedia," she points out, "five minutes on a Monday morning tells me everything I need to fake being a normal girl at the office."

"Where's the fun in that?" He asks. "You choose the films, I'll bring the popcorn."

"You want to make a night of it?" she teases, then has that moment when she replays what she just said and winces. "I mean," she adds quickly, "my couch is really very comfortable, and we can mock recent popular culture in a totally platonic way without keeping one eye on the clock."

"Sounds fun."

"Only problem is," she says, "it's not like we have a lot of nights off..."

"I do know the guy in charge," he says, "I could put in a good word."

They leave it at that but life gets in the way, their search for the plan behind the list gets intense and she forgets he ever made the offer. 

Then one night he shows up at her door with two bottles of wine and a bag full of Chinese take out. 


	3. Harry Potter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter includes spoilers for the end of Harry Potter. Which was 6 years ago but still. Just in case anyone has not yet been spoiled for that one. In which case, how? Were you stuck on an island? Seriously?

"So," Oliver asks, wandering around her apartment while she retrieves two wineglasses and the corkscrew from her kitchen. "How did Harry Potter end?"

"What?" Felicity asks, surprised. He gestures at her book shelves.

"You have all the books. How did it end?"

"You missed that?" She considers, "I thought it came out in 2007?" She doesn’t wait for her answer, walking into the kitchen. It’s not like her apartment is so big she won’t be able to hear him. She’s a IT girl, not a Queen. This is the most space she can afford.

"I never read the books," she hears him admit. "Saw some of the films with Laurel. And Thea. She liked the girl character, Hermione."

"Yeah?" Felicity tries to picture the younger Oliver at the multi-screen with his little sister. The image won’t quite come together. She keeps seeing quivers and eye make-up, not carefree siblings.

In the kitchen, Felicity glances down at herself, taking in her pajama pants and old hoodie. She hadn't expected him to come around. Pretty much ever. She would feel awkward but it’s not like Oliver has any interest in her. They’re friends, or so he says. She can’t help being attracted to him. Anyone would be attracted to him. There are probably straight men discovering latent urges over Oliver Queen at this very moment.

"I think it was the hair," Oliver’s voice interrupts her thoughts, bringing her back to the here and now. "I remember her saying she had hair like Hermione. I think she even dressed up as her one Halloween."

"That's sweet," Felicity says, walking back in. She places the glasses on the table and reaches for the wine bottle.

"I was 19," he says, his eyes going distant as he remembers. "She was 9 - maybe? My mother made me take her out. She told me all about Hogwarts. Wouldn't stop talking about how much she wanted to go there." He smiles, but it's pained. Felicity wonders what it's like to have missed so much of a sibling's life. Especially considering how close they are now.

"So how did it end?" He says, pointedly.

"Shouldn't you ask Thea?"

"I'd forgotten all about it," he says, "until I saw the books on your shelf. Don't want to forget again."

"Oh," she says as she pulls the cork out if the bottle, "well, Harry wins, Voldemort dies, but he does manage to kill most of the cool supporting characters - and even Harry for a few chapters. Then he gets brought back by the power of love. Or something."

"I assume you mean Harry," he says, "not Voldemort."

"Of course Harry. Hermione ended up with Ron, which caused a few epic shipping wars and then JK Rowling came out and said Dumbledore was gay and the Internet erupted. Major ructions."

Felicity looks up from pouring the wine to see Oliver regarding her with an amused look on his face.

"That's how I remember 2007," she shrugs, "freshman year in college. I didn't know many people so I spent a lot of time online."

"It served you well."

"I can talk nerd culture for hours," she agrees, offering him a glass. "But I can't help but think that was never your scene."

"Not really," he admits, taking a sip. "So Dumbledore was gay? I thought he was dead."

"Only mostly dead," she corrects.

"Like me," he says, but he smiles and before she can respond he's already turned his attention to the food. "I didn't know what you liked, so I got a little of everything."

"Wow," she reacts as he lines up dish after dish on her coffee table. "I guess being a billionaire means never having to stick to the set menu for two."

"I like variety," he says, "you want some rice?"

"I'll take the noodles." She retrieves the carton in question, adds some soy sauce and digs in with chopsticks.

"You have a lot of books," he says.

"I like books."

"And DVDs."

"I like movies. And TV shows, or I did back when I had time to watch them."

"So what did I miss," he asks, "what are the pop culture moments of the past few years that a man out of time, like myself, should watch?"

"What kind did you used to watch?"

"Action," he says, "Michael Bay, that kind of thing. Tommy used to get tickets to premiers. I'd go along to flirt with the actresses."

"I remember," she says, "didn't you break Megan Fox's heart?"

"Who?"

Felicity pauses, counting backwards.

"Huh, I guess she was after your time. I could have sworn I read that somewhere..."

"Megan Fox?"

"Oh she's sultry," Felicity explains, "dark hair, kinda busty. Doesn't look too different from that crazy ex of yours now I think about it."

She watches Oliver ignore the Helena reference, reaching instead for the sweet and sour chicken.

"Who's Katniss?" He asks, "Tommy called me that the other day."

"Heroine in The Hunger Games," Felicity explains, "uses a bow and arrow to bring down an evil government."

"Huh," Oliver considers, "that's more appropriate than Legolas at least."

"But not as pretty."

"Does pretty matter?"

"If we're being accurate," she says, "I like J-Law but you're much prettier than Katniss. Almost as pretty as Legolas."

"It's been a while since anyone called me pretty," he muses.

"To your face," she counters, "it's the adjective of choice online. Pretty boy Oliver Queen."

He pulls a face.

"Pretty?" He asks, "not handsome?"

"Well," she says, "they don't know you like John and I know you."

"Yes, Diggle calls me handsome all the time," he says deadpan, and she laughs.

"Only behind your back," she teases.

He smiles at her and she looks at him, this handsome - pretty - man on her sofa.

He leans in, and she blinks. He couldn't be about to kiss her, could he? Her mouth goes dry.

"Felicity," he says, very seriously, "you have soy sauce on your nose."

She reaches for the pile of paper towels that came with the food in a sudden rush and manages to knock her wine glass over with her elbow.

Oliver is there in a flash, catching the glass before a drop can spill and holding her arm to steady her.

"Thanks," Felicity says looking up into eyes that are so much closer than she's ever seen them before. "You have talented hands - fast! Fast hands."

"Practice," he shrugs, placing her wine on the table and completely ignoring her verbal gaffe.

He’s good at that, she realises. He’s forever forgiving what she says. She supposes he must be used to people tripping over their tongues around him.

But then what does he expect when he looks like that.

She eyes him, still more than a little embarrassed, and then inspiration strikes.

“Star Trek!” She blurts out.

Oliver raises an eyebrow.

“Star Trek?”

“Star Trek,” she confirms, “they made a new one. Kirk, Spock, the whole crew.”

“I liked the one with the whales,” he says, “that was fun.”

“I can work with that,” Felicity says, “and I have the new one on blu-ray.”

“Blu-ray?” He says, his eyebrows furrowing in an amusingly cute way.

“Stop it,” she chastises, “I’m sure Tommy Merlyn was an early adopter. You know what blu-ray is.”

“Always spoiling my fun,” he complains, but he gestures towards the TV and she takes this for permission.

“Open the other bottle,” she says, “baby Spock always makes me sad.”


	4. Sexual harassment

Felicity sighs and leans back in her office chair to stare at the ceiling. It’s 5pm and it has just been one of those days.

Email problems, disappearing files, the company firewall misbehaving and preventing access to anything other than the company intranet for the longest 47 minutes ever. And then there had been Michaelson.

Felicity always prided herself on being a good person. A nice person.

Michaelson however she could drop kick into a volcano.

It never technically crossed the line into sexual harassment, but every second she spent in his company made her skin crawl. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why that was - he never touched her, his attempts at flirting weren’t half as bad as some of the executives and she’d never found anything remotely disturbing in his internet history (unlike some).

He just looked at her, and she felt unclean.

Felicity shuddered, thinking of the fact she’d spent several minutes crawling around under his desk to get at the cables. Something had gone wrong with his network access - a physical problem, definitely not something she could fix from her desk or by proxy - and she’d had to get down on her knees and find the faulty port.

She just knew she was going to be spending some time in Michaelson’s fantasy life this evening doing things down there that were decidedly not in her job description.

He’d looked eager, she remembers. His eyes had snapped to her face in a way that suggested that milliseconds before they had been fixed on her ass.

The skirt she’s wearing is one of her favourites, but she’s seriously considering putting it in the goodwill bag. She knows it makes her ass look great, but she’s not wearing it for Michaelson.

Thinking about who she is wearing it for is a no-go area, so she avoids it, but she does wonder if it’s time for her start wearing more pants to work. She likes her skirts, but they’re not the most practical of office wear.

She glances at the clock. 23 minutes to go until she can log off here, drive the two miles across town and start her second job in Oliver Queen’s basement. No matter what Oliver asks her to do she knows it’ll be more interesting that everything else she’s done today. Even if it will also technically be much more illegal.

She wonders if he’ll be working out on that impressive ladder/bar thing of his tonight. The salmon ladder, John had called it. She could do with a few positive images of Oliver to appreciate after today. Though, it suddenly occurs to her, does that make her as bad as Michaelson? Openly appreciating the view of a colleague in a decidedly non-sexual situation?

Hypocrisy thy name is Felicity.

She tries to clamp down on that thought as she returns to work, her hands typing out the automatic response to stupid questions - “have you tried turning it off and on again?” - waiting in her email inbox.

The remaining minutes of her official job pass quickly, and it’s not long before she’s shouldering her handbag and tucking her jacket over her arm. Now she can go and fight justice, right wrongs - or, more likely, hack into somewhere she really shouldn’t in order to help Oliver out. If she ever gets caught, she’ll have more than one charge of unauthorized access and conspiracy to combat. She’s not sure that a judge will accept her explanation of 'Oliver Queen asked me to do it.' Even if she had the man himself there as exhibit #1. Judges are made of sterner stuff.

Even if her larger motive is pure - finding Walter - the real reason she returns to him every day is that he asked her to. And there’s no legal defence that relies on the excuse of a growing friendship and a one-sided crush.

She pulls into the parking lot a few blocks over from Verdant. She tries to not the park in the same place two days in a row - she’s been around Oliver and John long enough by now to have absorbed some of their paranoia - and walks the remaining distance. This isn’t the best of neighbourhoods, but it’s not as bad as it was. And besides it’s still light.

She enjoys her few minutes of evening sunshine. She had parked in the underground lot at the office and this is the first time today she’s spent any time outside - if you don’t count the dash from her apartment building to the car, which she doesn’t. She took the 20 feet in question at a run, having to hurry to make her mandated 8.30 arrival time.

Goddamn 8.30 arrival time.

Still this is almost pleasant. Warm enough that she doesn’t need to wear the coat but not so warm that she feels sweaty. The kind of heat she likes. A girl with pale skin like hers doesn’t thrive in high summer, and she seems to spend most of the winter months bundled in giant sweaters pressing tissues to her runny nose. She gets every head cold going. Always has.

“Good day?”

Felicity blinks, looking around to see Oliver sitting on the edge of the Verdant loading dock. He’s in his street clothes - his unofficial club manager outfit - and looks relaxed, for once.

“Hi,” Felicity says, “and in answer to your question, no, not really.”

“Oh,” he replies, “want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Come on, Felicity,” he says, patting the space on the concrete beside him. “Tell me. I’m interested. I want to know.”

“Fine,” she sighs, but it’s not as put-upon as she makes out. She’s still kind of amazed that he has any sort of interest in her. That Oliver, with his bow and arrow and superhero ways, considers her a friend and asks about her day.

She brushes non-existent dirt off of the concrete lip of the dock and sits down.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she says, “there’s just this guy.”

“Oh,” Oliver repeats, and the tone of it is so strange that Felicity glances over at him. He’s not looking her and his jaw is set. He seems suddenly unhappy, and she can’t for the life of her see why that would be.

“Do you like him?” Oliver asks, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance, and suddenly things click into place for Felicity. He’s jealous.

She stares at him, incredulously. This cannot be happening. The gorgeous Oliver Queen can not be acting jealous over her.

“Felicity,” Oliver says, turning to look at her. “Seriously, what’s he like?”

She thinks about extending this moment for the purposes of her own ego but she really cannot lie to him.

“He’s a douche,” she says, trying to make her tone girlish. Just because she’s not going to lie doesn’t mean she won’t tease him. A little.

“That’s nice,” he says, then, “hold on, he’s a what?”

“A douchebag,” she explains, “a dick. A lesser being.”

“What?” His brow furrows. “So you don’t like him?”

“Nope,” she says cheerfully, “in fact I was just thinking earlier today how I could happily drop him into the mouth of an active volcano and feel no guilt at all.”

Oliver grins at her.

“How about we leave the violence to me?” He says, “So who is this guy, what did he do?”

“Oh,” sighs Felicity, “he didn’t do anything. I was just crawling around under his desk today trying to fix a problem and he, he looked at me.”

“He looked at you?”

“Yeah, you know,” she shrugs, knowing she’s not explaining it well, “he looked at me.”

“Were you scared?” Oliver asks, obviously not getting it.

“No, no,” she says, “it was…” she searches for the word, “it was like he was filing the memory away. For later.”

“For later,” he repeats, then his eyes widen fractionally, “you mean - ?”

“Yup,” she says, glad he has caught on and she doesn’t have to explain this any further. “That’s it. Later.”

Oliver pulls a face.

“Lovely.”

“I know, right?”

“Do you want me to pay him a visit?” He asks, “put the fear of the Hood into him?”

“No,” she sighs, “thanks for the offer, but he’s not a criminal. He’s just a scumbag.”

“If you ever change your mind,” he says, “I’m happy to shoot him somewhere non-fatal.”

“If you went after everyone who had unclean thoughts,” she points out, “you would definitely run out of arrows.”

“That’s true.”

They sit there in silence. The sun is dropping down behind the glass and steel towers in the middle distance. Felicity thinks she can even see the Queen Consolidated office from here, slightly off to the side behind the Merlyn building. It all looks pretty and clean, sparkling in the sunshine. It doesn’t look like the kind of place that needs a hooded vigilante, but she supposes, appearances can be deceiving.

“It must happen a lot,” Oliver says, not looking at her again. “This kind of thing.”

“Not really,” she admits, “it’s just this one guy.”

“Felicity,” he says, turning to look at her, “don’t be silly.”

“Silly?”

“I mean look at you,” he says, waving a hand. “You’re beautiful.”

Felicity blinks. Then giggles.

“What?” His eyebrows draw together in what seems to be genuine confusion.

“You’re telling me I’m beautiful?” She says between giggles. “You’re telling me this?”

“Yeah,” he says, “so?”

“Have you looked in a mirror Oliver?” She grins. “If one of us is making appearances in people’s fantasy lives, I’d say you’re it!”

He frowns at her and she laughs even harder.

“Felicity,” he says, “don’t put yourself down like that. You’re gorgeous. I’m sure lots of guys have thought about you like that.”

“Well,” she says, “that’s because men think about sex like every six seconds. Women are more evolved.”

“Really,” he says dryly, “not from what I’ve seen.”

“Oh so you do see it,” she says, “you do notice people noticing you.”

“Not consciously,” he shrugs, “it’s just one of those things.”

“Poor Oliver Queen,” she smiles, “so used to being in everyone’s spank bank he can’t even appreciate it anymore.”

“Spank bank?” He winces, “that’s an unpleasant thought.”

“Pretty sure the description predates 2007,” she says, “you must have heard it before.”

“Yeah,” he admits, “but if I’m in some, so are you.”

“Don’t I know it,” she says, “thank you, Michaelson.”

He has a look on his face like he’s filing the name away for some arrow based justice so she adds, “I’m still not giving you permission to shoot him.”

“You can argue with me all you want,” he says, “but I know for a fact that there’s more than one guy out there who thinks about you that way.”

“You can’t shoot them all.”

“No, I can’t.”

But I want to, his body language says. His fists open and close on his knees and the muscles of his shoulders are tight with tension.

“Come on,” she says, socking him in the shoulder in a very platonic way, “what nefarious plans do you have me thwarting tonight?”

“Nefarious?” He repeats, “Well, for a start can you hack into the GPS of the delivery that was supposed to be here an hour ago?”

“Oh Oliver,” she says, jumping down off the dock and brushing dirt off her skirt. “I thought we agreed to only use my powers for good.”

“I made no such promises,” he says, but he’s grinning and she feels the stress of today melt away like water. Things are certainly looking up.


	5. Dating

She’s getting ready for a date, when something taps on her window and she jumps what feels like a foot in the air.

Her apartment is not on the first floor. It’s not within five levels of the first floor. But there is a fire escape, so before she pulls back the blind and looks out, she already know who it’s going to be.

“Oliver.”

The window opens smoothly and he’s right there, crouched on her fire escape with his Hood and quiver.

He blinks at her. The whites of his eyes stand out from the camouflage make-up he wears like he’s shocked.

She rolls her eyes. He can’t claim he’s never seen her dressed up before - there was the charity auction (almost got decapitated) and the underground casino (almost got shot) - so she doesn’t really get how he can be looking at her as if he never realised that the glasses weren’t a permanent part of her face.

“You’re going out.” He states in a flat voice.

Felicity resists the urge to say “Duh” but only because she’s a nice person.

“Yes,” she says, instead, “I’m going out.”

“On a date.”

“Yes, on a date.”

Oliver pauses. On anyone else she would call this fidgeting, but he’s not moving. It’s more than his eyes seem to have unfocused while he runs through a list of possible things to say. Other people twiddle their thumbs at a time like this, some play with their keys - Oliver searching through his mental Rolodex is always disconcerting because it’s so obvious that he’s doing that. He really did swap social skills for combat training on that island of his.

“You wanted something?” She snaps, then immediately regrets it because he looks almost hurt. “I mean,” she adds, hastily, “that I told you I wasn’t available this evening.”

“I know.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“Yes.”

“Oliver,” Felicity says, letting some of her exasperation show on her face. “Why are you here?”

“I’m not sure,” he says. “I guess, I wanted to see you.”

“Really? You saw me, at the most, two hours ago.”

“I wanted to check on you,” he says, “you didn’t seem very… happy.”

“Of course not,” she says, “I wasn’t particularly looking forward to going home and doing this!” She sweeps her hands wide, trying to encapsulate the outfit (a short red dress with a flared skirt that her mother sent her along with a note to wear it out somewhere nice), the contact lenses (that she never feels entirely comfortable with), the incredibly high shoes (that admittedly she does love but walking in them for more than a few minutes causes actual physical pain) and the fact that every surface in the room is covered in open bottles, tubes, tubs and compacts of cosmetics. “This,” she says, adding an additional gesture for good measure, “is not fun. This,” one more wave, “is a pain.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“I have a date,” she shrugs. “It’s expected. If I ever meet a guy who won’t mind me coming to dinner in pajamas and a hoodie I’ll be golden. Until then-”

She throws up her hands. She never wanted this date to begin with. It all began with her mother’s weekly phone call and guilt trip - “why do you never talk about any nice boys Felicity?” “When are you going to get married Felicity” “You know your cousin is pregnant again Felicity?”

“You have a cousin?”

“Oh,” she says, mentally replaying the last few minutes of the conversation, “did that I say that out loud?”

“Yes,” he confirms, “and in a very different voice to your normal one.”

“Oh, that’s my Mom-voice,” she says, “that’s how she talks. In my head and in reality. It’s distinctive.”

“I see,” he says but she can tell he doesn’t.

“My Mom’s putting the pressure on,” she admits, “wants to see me settled down in the suburbs with two point four kids and a mini-van.”

“Ah.”

“And I mentioned this to Janey - Janey from accounts, I don’t think you’ve met her, she doesn’t really have anything to contribute to whole vigilante thing unless we decide to go after corruption in the tax office, which, thinking about it, is certainly something which has failed this city.”

“Janey?” He prompts, putting her back on track after her ramble.

“Janey. Well she has a roommate, and that roommate has a brother and he got dumped a few months ago, and they all kinda ganged up on me and now I have a date. Believe me I’d much rather be hacking into Interpol in the basement for you.”

“I’d much rather that too,” she thinks she hears, but it’s almost a whisper.

She gives Oliver a look and he adopts an innocent expression.

Nothing makes him look guiltier than his innocent expressions.

“Is that all you wanted?” She asks, “To check on me?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“And I am. Annoyed but okay. My feet hurt - already! - but I’m okay.”

Oliver tips his head, looking down at her shoes.

“They look painful,” he admits.

“They are,” she says. She sighs then sits down on the end of her bed. She takes her right shoe off and starts to massage her foot, trying to restore what circulation the heels destroyed.

She looks up to see Oliver climbing in through her window. In the tiny cramped surroundings of her bedroom he seems oddly huge and out of place. He stands stiffly - he’s even still got the Hood up.

Felicity rolls her eyes.

“Could you be any more awkward?” She says, “at least put the bow down.”

He does so, gingerly pushing aside bottles and tubs on the top of her dresser to find space for his aggressively large recurve bow. It looks weird there, a piece of him carefully placed amongst her belongings. She stares at it for a second, knowing somehow that she’ll dream of this moment - maybe it’ll get added into her subconscious’ favourite Oliver fantasies.

Her subconscious has a lot of Oliver fantasies. Some of which involve this room, this bed and, yup, she looks down to check, even these shoes.

They’re the shoes she always wears on a first date - they make her feel sexy and desirable and it’s no surprise that in every dream she has along those lines she’s almost always wearing them.

But Goddamn do they hurt her feet.

She swaps her attention to her left foot, letting the right settle back down flat on the fuzzy carpet. She can’t help but sigh at the relief she’s massaging into her feet. She almost forgets Oliver is there.

“Don’t go,” he says softly, and she looks up in surprise.

“What?”

“Don’t go on your date,” abruptly his hands come up, pushing the Hood back and his eyes, dark and intense and all the more so from the green camouflage make-up spread around them, pin her down with a look she can’t quite identify.

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Felicity bites her lip. She’s had dreams like this, but in every case he was confident and determined and she was swept along. She was never sitting on the end of her bed hunched over a painful foot while he stood stiffly several feet away, his hands clenched by his sides.

“Felicity.”

“Oliver.”

“Don’t go,” he says, simply, clearly. “Do not go out tonight.”

“I have plans…” she says, but it’s a token protest.

“Cancel them,” he says, “cancel them all. Stay here. With me.”

“With you?”

“I want to hear about your day,” he says, “I want you to pester me for coffee beans and tell me about movies I missed and whatever the hell an internet flame war is and what you want to eat for lunch tomorrow and where that scumbag colleague of yours lives so I can go and shoot him for looking at you like he has any right to think of you like that at all.”

Felicity stares.

“Please, Felicity,” he says, taking a step towards her and suddenly she can see an edge of desperation in his expression. He’s nervous - as if the babbling didn’t give it away. She’s quite au fait with babbling as a concept, but she never expected to hear it from him.

“Please Felicity,” he repeats, “you are the best part of my day. Talking to you is the best part of my day and I want it to be all of my day. I want you to be all of my day. I want you.”

She stares up at him.

“You want me?” She repeats, shocked.

“I want you. I want all of you.” he confirms. “Felicity, please.”

He steps closer, so close she has to crane her head back to look up at him. His hand comes up to cup her face, his thumb strokes her cheek.

“Oliver,” she says, but she doesn’t have any more words. This kind of thing happens in dreams, not in reality. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to her. He’s supposed to fall in love with the heroine, not the IT girl.

“Felicity,” he says, then smiles and leans down, brushing his lips over hers.

He doesn’t push the kiss, just offers it. Offers himself to her.

She looks into his eyes. There are gold flecks in his irises that she’s never noticed before. That she’s never been close enough to notice before.

Her arms come up, locking around his neck before she even thinks consciously to make the movement. She lifts her lips to his, and suddenly his hands are on her waist, lifting her to her feet so he can wrap her in his arms.

His kiss is better than she ever imagined. Little sparks of electricity seem to dance across her skin everywhere he touches her. She opens her mouth to let his tongue inside and he groans, pressing her body against his and running his hands over her back.

She lets her eyes fall closed and savours the sensation - the taste of him, the touch, the smell.

“Is this really happening?” She whispers as he kisses his way down her neck.

The hungry growl of a groan he replies with does things to her insides that she’s only ever read about.

“Seriously Oliver,” she says, opening her eyes and pulling on his hair to get him to look at her. “Why? Why now? Why me?”

He smiles, warm and open.

“You really do have no idea how remarkable you are, do you?”

She tries to smile back, but she suspects her expression is more confused than confident.

“I didn’t expect you Felicity Smoak,” he says, “but I’m really happy I found you.”

He grins and glances down at her outfit. “And I’m really very happy I found you in this dress.”

“You should see what I look like out of it,” she quips, and her brain sparks and she’s about to apologise, again, for saying something so inappropriate to… to the man who’s holding her in his arms and grinning widely.

“I can’t wait,” he says dropping his mouth down to kiss her again. “Best part of my day,” he repeats between kisses. “I can’t wait to see if you’ll be the best part of my night as well.”


End file.
